In 2010, Yale launched its first Sustainability Strategic Plan.
While it was a major milestone in sustainability efforts on
campus, it was not well suited to inspire individual actions
among the employees and students. For example, the average person could not really do anything to support the
renewable-energy targets, and few employees or students
could relate their own daily choices (in terms of purchasing, energy use, etc.) to the goals of the plan.
In an attempt to address this disconnect, the Yale Office of
Sustainability piloted a programme to establish Sustainability Action Plans for three of its ten professional schools
and, over the course of one year, the Sustainability group
worked with teams of students and employees to develop
documents that were tailored to the unique culture of each
of these Schools. In each case, this resulted in sustained
efforts over the course of the plan. Based on this pilot,
the 2013-2016 Yale Sustainability Strategic Plan includes
a commitment to develop a Sustainability Action Plan for
each of the professional schools. These plans have three
aims:
1

Highlighting specific goals from the university-wide
plan where a particular school can support success

2

Spelling out particular actions that will help green
the physical presence of a particular school (for example, recycling signage or reducing paper)

3

Emphasising the links between sustainability and the
particular discipline of each school.

IARU - Green Guide for Universities – pathways towards sustainability

Green Guide for Universities – IARU pathways towards sustainability developed by 10 leading international universities and the think-tank Sustainia. Targets key issues to address, recommendations and lessons learned when making universities more sustainable. Learn from 23 inspiring real-life cases that have made a difference.